


each one of us travels to love alone

by oopsabird



Category: DC Extended Universe, Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Falling In Love, Found Family, Love Confessions, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Wonder Woman (2017), Sami’s pathological fear of inevitable rejection, Tenderness, Vulnerability, even if not in so many words, mortifying ordeal of being known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopsabird/pseuds/oopsabird
Summary: Permanence can be scary, when you aren’t used to it.
Relationships: Charlie & Sameer (Wonder Woman), Charlie/Sameer (Wonder Woman)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	each one of us travels to love alone

**Author's Note:**

> “I know each one of us travels to love alone,  
> alone, to faith and to death.  
> I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.  
> Let me come with you.”  
> -[Yiannis Ritsos](https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poem/2678/auto/0/0/Yiannis-Ritsos/Moonlight-Sonata/en/tile)  
> (if this poem excerpt sounds familiar to you, thanks for reading [my longer fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18345500) lol)
> 
> [a song for Sami](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw4vYbTNJDc) that informs the vibes for this fic

Sameer is a runner.

Perhaps more accurately, he is a horizon-chaser. Ran away at fifteen, seeking the glow of bright stage lights when his family forbade him. Kept running, after, hopping towns across Europe and Asia, searching for someplace where his dream could live. Made his own rules.

Don’t get tied down, that rule is important. Life is too short to do things too seriously, and getting too invested in people and places just sets you up for rejection. Better to start over, let them miss your memory. Remain a charming stranger or acquaintance, nothing more.

The war is the most he’s stayed put in decades, missions excepted. A little London flat. A little group of comrades, friends. And Charlie, who pays half the rent and laughs at his jokes and sings sweet songs — Charlie, who as the war drags on seems unlikely to survive without Sami there keeping him safe.

Roots, growing slowly, tying him down.

He itches to run, after it’s over. To flee his grief. To go searching for perfection, looking for fresh adventures. To be safely a stranger again, known to nobody. Charlie is sober, recovering, steadying — surely that’s a sign that Sameer should go, is no longer needed.

Quietly, he makes plans to slip away.

He has forgotten that Charlie’s eyes are keener than most when he’s sober, with a talent for seeing through certain layers of Sami’s facades. That Charlie is the exception to nearly all of his rules.

And so he’s surprised, the night Charlie grabs his hand in the hallway, painfully earnest, a longing ache in his eyes. “If I can’t keep you from goin’... please, let me come with you, anywhere. Never did much like London anyway.”

Heart overflowing, Sami tenderly kisses his knuckles, and finally finds the courage to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Personally, I always liked the idea of them living in Paris :)
> 
> “He believes life is too short to do things too seriously” is [something Saïd once said about Sami in an interview](https://oopsabird.tumblr.com/post/632792332827295744/i-think-about-this-interview-snippet-of-sa%C3%AFd), along with the fact that he lived a transient life before the war. So of course my character dev work has involved combining that with his history of getting rejected from his dream, and making feelings/a complex out of it. man, I think about the idea behind this fic a lot.
> 
> hope you enjoyed this! kudos and comments make my day!


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